This is one subject I usually leave out of a conversation mostly because I believe every person comes to having this in their life at their own time and in their own way, however yesterday when a Twitter fellow replied to one of my posts about which one was the "Greatest Lie" of all saying that the greatest lie really was: "The biggest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing humanity that he doesn't exist." while this to me is really a partial lie because there are people that really don't believe in the devil, I am one of them, there are others that do believe the Devil exist but in no way do I feel that the statement is the greatest lie.
After pointing out that there is part of humanity that do not believe in the devil we sort of had a nice discussion about good and evil (as nice of a discussion as you can have when trying to explain something that can be very complex to explain at times in 160 characters or less after you add the username on it is a lot less!), he asked where I think evil comes from, where does pain come from? and of course in between comments a few were dismissed due to the nature of how twitter works, however it ended in him sharing a blog about the world being at war, in it is stated how he sees the world, I understand many see it that we are definitely at some sort of war with something, otherwise how would you explain all the bad things that happen? How do you possibly explain that you live a good life and try to only do good and suddenly something bad happens? It has to be that there is something or someone that is our enemy and is constantly working against us.
Throughout the past 7 years or so I have gone through an amazing spiritual journey, one that has brought me to figure out that the only person that is out to get me, is myself; now many will ask why or how is it that a person will sabotage themselves? that person must be totally insane to go something against themselves, after all what we want is only the best for us right? Yes I do want the best for me but I don't know what the best for me is (here is where my faith has strengthen and grown to the point that the only person that can make me doubt it is myself) but there is one being that knows and that being is in constant communication with all of us, I firmly believe that we have signs every where, each one telling us which turn to make and if we follow them then the best will be given, some people call that being God, others call it a Spirit, some say it is a Goddess and others say is just your intuition; then there are a few that say that is all you, that there is no such thing and is just your brain trying to figure things out.
I respect all the views, again everyone comes to their faith in their own time and their own way, but to me God has been there to guide my every step and every time I decided to not listen things got just completely out of control, when I first met my ex-husband that little voice and the signs were all there, I was supposed to not go anywhere near the guy, he was not the one, but my logic at the time and my refusal to accept that God had not really abandoned me that it was me that was not listening brought me to talk to this guy, then marry the guy, live in a constant battle with him and myself because that was not really where I had to be and in turn I made myself very unhappy, that's when the question aroused and I did ask: Why me? and then I followed it by saying I am listening now, tell me please and my answer was that I had not listened before. Then I asked, as I was crying in the bathroom and feeling absolutely miserable, please take me out of here, I said I promise I will listen now, I can't take this anymore, I have no strength to keep going and if I don't find a way out I don't know where I might end up, at that point all I heard was it is not time yet, now you stay and when I got angry and asked why again, all I heard was "your little girl", after that it did not matter what I asked there was no answer, and the last answer made no sense to me at all, so I was even angrier.
A few weeks after this enormous episode I started to get sick, my stomach was hurting me a lot, I could barely work, I ended up in the hospital and by then I had not even realized that I had missed my period, I always keep a calendar on when it comes and this time I had not, at the hospital I found out I was pregnant, for a while there my then husband changed the way he treated me, I figured now this makes sense maybe God is touching him in some way and now it will all be great, we can be a family, then I found out that he was addicted to drugs, and things that had happened before made sense to me now, things he had said, things he did and did not do. At that point in time I said and asked again: "Is this the man that I am supposed to be with? If this is the man for me and he will be a good father for my daughter then God you will make it so, you will help him overcome his addiction, you will allow myself to trust him and will keep him around for many years, if not then make sure you take him away and you spare my child from any pain, in return I will learn to listen."
During the remainder of my pregnancy things were going good, he switched jobs and bills were getting paid, I was not working for a few months since the morning sickness really took the best of me, then I started work again, and when my beautiful daughter was born I was able to stay with her at home, breastfeed her, care for her the way I had always wanted, then a few months later things started to go bad again, we started losing things: the apt, the car, money, then there was no food, no credit, nothing. I found myself living in a room with my husband and child, no money, no phone, no way of really communicating with anyone because he would pawn my computer every other day and of course I was always too ashamed to say something about it. The day came when that little voice said it was time to go, yes I asked again why now? why not before I lost my good credit, before losing my car, my money and most of all before losing the 15 pounds of weight that I could not afford to lose? Well, the answer to that did not come right away, it all made sense months later.
As I had promised before I listened and finally left, the months after that were almost torturous, the emails, text messages, voicemails were something I thought I would never hear or read someone say to me, and I kept asking when it was all going to end, I kept fighting a fight that was not for me to fight, because I knew that God had this, that he saw things that I could not possibly see but the more I fought his fight the more he let me fall just like a good parent does with their child when they don't listen, you are still there to help them up when they fall but sometimes you just have to let them fall, and so he did. Finally when I felt I could not possibly get up anymore, that I just had no idea what it was that I was doing and decided that I had to just let it be like my father in heaven had asked me, it all started to come together, a few weeks after I stopped fighting, when I stopped talking to lawyers, trying to get a divorce, trying to protect my child, I got a phone call from a detective inquiring about my husband, letting me know that there was a warrant for his arrest and if I knew where he was to let him know, I really didn't he had disappeared right before the holidays, did not contact me at all, peace was temporarily restored.
In a way I was glad, and in others it was sad, my daughter was not going to have a father unless he had the courage to change but later on I found out he just really doesn't and being that my child was just months old when we separated and had just turned a year when he disappeared, she was spared the pain of losing a dad, she never really had one so there was nothing really to lose and as I was blaming myself for the whole situation because in fact I did make the choices I made without really listening to that guiding voice I believe we all have, and just when I kept blaming myself a good friend of mine had a good conversation that has stuck with me, he told me how the Holy Father will always make sure that all his children are doing well, the idea of free will is what allow us to make mistakes but when we go back and listen carefully he will make sure to clean our wounds and help us up again. I asked my friend why this way, and he said: if your daughter is dirty and you just bought her new clothes, would you let her wear the new clothes before giving her a shower and cleaning her up? and the answer was of course not! so he said that is what God is doing, he is cleaning up the mess that was made by the decisions you know you should have not taken and it takes time to get cleaned up, but it will get there and when you are there you will be able to wear your new clothes.
It has been three years or so since my husband got arrested the first time and of course in between I have had a few battles, a few people that have tried do wrong to me and my child and each time when I tried to fight back I first asked if this was my fight to fight and when I was told NO, I have slowly learned to let go, sure I have tried to fight a few times it is in my nature but I am human and God knows that I will try to fight back when I am being done wrong or my daughter is, however when I do and is not my fight to fight and I fall down he will be there to pick me up, the pain and the suffering come from my own decisions and not from an evil being that is there to sabotage me, I have learned that the only one that has tried to do so is myself.
Now on that note, when it comes to pain due to illness, when it comes to illness, I don't really have a straight answer for that one, other than it was also a choice the first humans made, whether it was a temptation drawn by a forbidden fruit that was pointed out by a snake or serpent that after eating said fruit the entire human race was doomed for ever and was to learn about pain and illness, or it is that there are a few planes of existence and we have decided somehow to live in the one plane where we are truly aware of good and evil, and in order to be aware of that we have to know about both sides, whether you say you know what is right and therefore you know what is wrong or vice-versa, I don't for one moment believe that my God, the great Spirit, the all good mighty God that wants his children to do the best and be the best would allow an evil spirit to become our enemy. What good father would do that to his children? Could there be a bigger reason illness exists? Could it have a purpose that we just don't know about or not see yet? some illnesses are caused by our lack of caring for ourselves, by habits we create, should we blame an evil spirit for those too?
What about wars? are wars started by an evil spirit entering a human soul or convincing them that this is the way? Human beings still have the power to choose, in the end we choose to do or not to do, to follow a leader or to make our own decisions, most of us usually will pick a side and will follow on that side no matter if that side makes sense or not, and we just continue to follow it never waking up from the daze, I have learned to see the world from every angle that is given to me, and then I have made my own decision as to which angle I would like to go with, sometimes I create a new one, but as far as the devil goes, I don't believe it exists, and if it did then how is it that you give power to those that want to harm you? usually is by letting them into your life, by giving them a name, by thinking about their very next move and you trying to be one step ahead; and then instead of listening to the right voice, the one that requires you to have an extreme amount of faith and makes absolutely no sense at the moment, you end up going with the voice of reason. Yes it is hard to leave that voice of reason to the side, but there is one lesson that I have learned and that is that I can only see so far and God can see everything therefore certain decisions are best made without logic and with more faith and evil exists in each of us, but we always have a choice to do good or harm the choice always comes down to each of us and no one else.
